Insights and Inspiration
from the
Holy Land
from
from
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
"Your friend in Karmiel"
September 16th 2016 -Volume 6,
Issue 51 13th Elul 5776
Parshat Ki Teitzei
Deplorables?
There they stood on the side of the road with their finger stuck out.
They were all tiuyuled up shorts, hats, large water packs and ripped T-
shirts. They were certainly not chareidi. The earrings and tats were a pretty
good give-away. I pulled over, my chasidic music blasting out of my window. I
always give hitches. I spend too much time on the side of the road with my
finger stuck out to violate that cardinal mitzva of ‘Love your neighbor as
yourself’. Besides it usually makes for good weekly E-mail material, one of my
primary driving motivations in life, as you know.
So they got in the car and after a few minutes asked me if I was da’ati-religious.
I guess my music was a dead giveaway. In my shorts and T-Shirt myself perhaps
it wasn’t obvious. I look pretty cool, by the way, in my tour guide gear… I’m
just saying. Now being a bit of an Israeli and a Jew and a Rabbi, of course I
couldn’t resist by merely answering a simple question with a simple answer, I responded
instead.
Kulanu da’ati’im Kaan BaMedina-We are all religious in this country. And then to make it
even more juicy I said.
Ani af pa’am lo pagashti ben adam chiloni- I have never met a secular Jew.
Well that got them going a bit. One of them quickly told me that I
should then make a Shehechiyanu for he was a chiloni.
Funny isn’t it? How only a secular Israeli could know what blessing you make
upon the first time you do or encounter something. But the important thing is
he took the bait; a bait I knew an Israeli could never resist. I said, really
you claim to be a secular Jew? Let me ask you a question. Did you or do you
serve in the army? Of course, he responded with pride. He was in fact in the
Golani elite para-troopers brigade. Wow! I exclaimed. So you’re telling me that
you are prepared to give your life in order to defend a fellow Jew, perhaps
even a fellow ultra-orthodox chareidi Jew. That’s pretty amazing. I know plenty
of religious Jews that aren’t religiously motivated to take on their shoulders
that responsibility to defend Jews not only in Israel, but according to the IDF
mandate to risk their lives and defend Jews anywhere they might be in the
world. Sounds pretty religious to me…
But more than that I continued. If god-forbid, it should never happen to
you or any of our boys anywhere, but for arguments sake and tragically
unfortunately this has happened much too often. If you were trapped somewhere
and surrounded by the animals that are trying to kill us daily. You’re out of
ammo. There’s nothing you can do. What would you do? Sheepishly he said rather quietly that he would
pray…. I asked him to SPEAK UP, I WAS HAVING
DIFFICULTY HEARING HIM. He sat up
straighter-like a real Golani. Like a real proud Israeli. Like a YID…and said I
would pray. I asked him to whom?
I continued and told him, that I was sure that- again it would and
should never happen, but I’m sure his prayer would be Shema Yisrael. The same
words that every Jewish child learns as a little baby, the words in our teffilin,
in our mezuzot, the name that all our martyrs, our kedoshim
throughout our long history, whether it was by the Roman sword, the cursed
crusader javelins, the Spanish stakes and torture chambers, and Cossack knives
and the Nazi camps of death that caused that pinteleh yid to come out and
scream.
‘I’m a Jew, I believe in
Hashem, He is One. There is an eternal world. I am here to sanctify his name.
He is Avinu He is Malkeinu. My Father… My King.
There is no such thing as a chiloni Jew. Just one that perhaps
hasn’t come to terms and appreciated the incredible beauty, honor and privilege
that he possesses. The incredible religious life he is truly living. That all
Jews live. All Jews…
This week’s Torah portion is such an incredible one. Following on the
heels of last week’s description of the leadership of the Jewish people of
Shoftim- where we spoke about, the judges, the prophets, the kings, the
Kohen/priests and the Levi. In short the bessereh mentchen as my bubby
would say, the upper class, the really religious Jews…the chareidim? This
week’s Torah portion we meet a little bit of a different crowd. The boys from
the bowery, scoundrels, the ones who have their faces posted on the post office
walls, what some presidential candidates might refer to as the “deplorables”.
The parsha starts off with the soldier that is picking up prisoner women of
war. We move on to husbands and fathers that will certainly never win any
awards, children at ‘risk’ and juvenile delinquents. We’ve got death penalty
candidates, kidnappers, rapists, gossipers, women of ill repute and men that
frequent them, children born out of wedlock, deviant dressers and behaviors.
Then of course there is the usurers, the corrupt businessmen and liars, and the
unscrupulous bosses and slave-owners. The only thing missing is perhaps the
members of Knesset. But you could probably find them in there somewhere as
well. If you looked not too hard. Welcahm to Eezrael. Talk about a crash
landing.
There are two amazing insights thought that I will share with you which shed
an incredible holy light on our special people. The segue between last week’s
Torah portion and this week’s is the very strange mitzva of someone that is
found dead outside of a city. Who is this guy? The Torah doesn’t tell us. He’s
what we in Israel we might just call stam a guy; Joe Shmoe. Now although
the Torah doesn’t tell us who he is, I’m sure the guys in the back of the shul
can tell you a bit about him. The guys in the Kiddush club were all talking
about him. They are the fountains of all wisdom. We don’t have water-cooler
conversations, we schmooze over chulent and the really juicy conversations are
in the Mikva. ‘He was probably one of those shnorrers, those beggars that
came to town to hit everyone up for money’-Yankel suggested. ‘No’ Moishie
said, ‘Those guys have some place to stay, this guy was probably caught up
in some hanky panky, some non-kosher business, maybe drugs, maybe smuggling’.
Before the chopped liver and herring is gone this guy has pretty much been
totally written off. We’re a lot better off without him. He got what is coming
to him. And life moves on to the next story.
The Torah tells us a different story though. The Torah tells us that the
entire Sanhedrin-all 120 of them, the greatest Rabbis and leaders of the
generation, all come out from Jerusalem to whatever neck in the woods
deplorable town this guy might have been found next to. They measure the
distance between towns to find out which one was closest to him. The Kohanim,
the Levi’im, whom the Torah tells us serve Hashem, who give us our
blessings, they join together with the elders and sages of the city, and in
perhaps one of the most graphic rituals in the Torah they decapitate from the
back a calf, in a nachal that will never flow, in a field that will
never be sown again and they wash their hands there declaring that their hands
had not spilled this blood. Wow! Do you know anybody else that ever got such a
memorable gathering upon their death? Who must he be? The guys in the back of
shul are murmuring again. He was obviously somebody very great. A holy Jew. One
of the 36 hidden righteous people of the world. I mean the whole Sanhedrin, all
the great Rabbis, politicians’ leaders, judges everybody is by his funeral. And
that my friend is exactly the point. There is no such thing a Joe Shmoe amongst
the Jews. We don’t just move on and write people off and let the authorities,
the police, CSI, the army, or the counter-terrorism unit just deal with finding
the perpetrators. Certainly not the politicians or even just the Rabbis or ZAKA
team. Every Jew has to know how important every other Jew is. What a tragedy it
is when we lose someone. What an even greater tragedy if we don’t recognize
while he was alive the greatness of each one of us. For if we would see that he
was the son of the King that he truly he is, there is no way we would have let
him leave the city on his own. Leave without accompaniment.
That is the transition from last week’s parsha of the
‘establishment’ and this week’s Torah portion of the ‘amcha’- the boys.
Perhaps it is even the function of the entire system that has been presented. This
week the portion teaches us an even more powerful lesson. We are told the law
of the convicted person who has been given the death penalty. We don’t need the
Kiddush club guys or the Mikva crew to tell us that this is guy is bad news. He’s
not even an anonymous corpse named Joe Shmoe. We know exactly who he is. The
papers have been full of him throughout his whole trial. He’s the one- in- every- 70 –years-death
penalty guy that fulfilled all the rigorous requirements that the Torah places
to carry out the punishment. There were witnesses that warned him of his
punishment seconds before he carried it out. He acknowledged it. The witnesses
were interrogated repeatedly and repeatedly on every nuance of what they saw-
truthfully any way we could avoid having to carry this out, the court has
tried. But this really really bad guy made it through to the big leagues. So we
kill him. Good riddance. Right? Wrong.
The Torah tells us that there is a mitzva to hang him on a tree after he
is stoned to death. The stoning being of course the method proscribed by the
Torah which will serve as an atonement for his sin, as well as being a natural
deterrent for the nation. The mitzva though is described in almost the opposite
form for it says that he may not be hung over night on that tree and should be
buried right away
Devarim (21:22-23) ‘Ki klilat Elokim talui -For a hanging person
is the insult/curse of Hashem”
Rashi is fascinating in that he utilizes this verse in a dual fashion.
On the reason for him being hung, Rashi says that a person that gets stoned is
hung afterwards from the verse above. For the word ‘klilat’ can be read
as he who curses Hashem should be hung. And as the punishment for cursing God’s
name is stoning it must mean after he is put to death he is hung.
However the following Rashi tells us that the reason he is not left
hanging is because the hanging person is a degradation of the King. For man is
made in the image of Hashem and Yisrael are his children. He then brings a
parable of two twin brothers, one became a king and one became a bandit and
ultimately got caught and was hung. Whoever would see the hanging man would
declare the king is hanging.
Very very strange. The same verse that teaches us to hang him, teaches
us that he must not be left there. The question though is why in fact do we
hang him? If there is a fear and it is a disgrace to the King, isn’t better to
just bury our stoned skeletons. As well one needs to ask the question. Really?
Would we ever confuse this low-life deplorable once-in-a-century-convicted-death-penalty-convict
with Hashem? Everybody in the shteeble knows what this guy was really
about.
The insight the Ari’zl reveals is that’s exactly why we hang him.
Because nobody really knows what he was really about. You know who he really
was? He was really the holiest divine image on this planet. He was the spark of
Hashem. Sure he sinned. Yeah it was a really bad one. But you know where sin
comes from. It’s in all of our nature. It goes back to Adam and Eve and the
first day of their creation. It goes back to “The tree”; the tree of
knowledge that incorporated in each of us the ability to fall so far from our
God. To fall almost to the point of when our tzelem elokim- our Divine
image, that holiness that each of us possesses may not even be recognizable.
Although it is always still there. We hang him after has atoned for his sin
through his death, on the tree to remind us that anything that
anything he may have done can be hung and blamed on ‘the’ tree. Look at
him. See that image of God. The image of the King. That holiness was never
gone. He was always religious. His soul never stopped being righteous. Never
stopped being Divine. And then we take him down and bury him. A Jewish burial.
A holy burial. A burial that will rise once again with the ultimate
resurrection when the curse of death that resulted from that first sin of the
tree is finally over.
There is no such thing as a deplorable Jew. There is no such thing as a chiloni.
There are only some who we are able to see that image of the King more easily.
And there are some that we do not see it so clearly. There are times that we
see it more clearly in ourselves. And there are times when we all fail to see
it even in ourselves.
I dropped off the young men at the next stop. I told them that now that
I proved to them and they as well to themselves already that they are religious-
maybe not chareidi, but certainly religious, then they may as well start
keeping Shabbos. They smiled and walked off to continue their tiyul,
their journey into the field. As I drove off I thought to myself that, as we
have noted in the past, the month of Elul we are told the ‘King is in the
field’. Hashem comes out to us. I’m
still looking for Him but at least today I got to see his twins. Perhaps that’s
a start for all of us to start working on this Elul. I’m sure He won’t be too
far behind.
Have a perfect Shabbos,
Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz
RABBI SCHWARTZ COOL VIDEO CLIPS OF THE WEEK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9P9r9M9CTo – Parshat
Ki Teitzei is never complete without listening to this classic from 40 years
ago Yigal Calek and the London Boys Choir Ki Yikareh Kan Tzipor song. Admit it
you have already started humming it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIfLbkx4ZIM–
This is an awesomely cool video of the last illegal Shofar blowers by the
Kotel under British mandate. Very cool and inspiring story…by the way did
mention that this is cool.
http://media.93fm.co.il/new/m/akplayer/203443554334f55cc7acdf4cea75aa1e.mp4
– A possible rendition of the Ben Ish Chai himself
singing on a recording done in the early 1900’s in Bagdahad from his synagogue
singing a song about Eliyahu on Motzai Shabbat. He would be the older voice in
the background.
RABBI SCHWARTZ’S
FAVORITE YIDDISH PROVERB OF THE WEEK
“Nit yederer oif vemen hunt bilen iz a ganev..”-
Not everyone the dogs
bark at is a thief.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S JEWISH PERSONALITY AND HIS
QUOTES IN HONOR OF THE YARTZEIT OF THE WEEK
“Why was the
Torah given to Bnei Yisroel? Because they are the most stubborn. He explains
that all the nations know about the obstinacy of Bnei Yisroel and how they
refuse to submit themselves under any burdens or someone else's rule.
Hashem gave us the Torah first to show the world how important the Torah
is for human existence. If we were ready to accept it, surely our entire
existence depends on it and the other nations should follow suit and submit to
the laws that Hashem set out for them.
”
“It
is neither age nor gender nor even religion that determines whom
the “Shechinah” (the Divine Presence) rests upon; it depends only on one’s behavior”
– Upon describing an arab sheikh that he felt achieved such and
reverence before Hashem to achieve Ruach Hakodesh.
Chacham Yosef
Chaim of Baghdad the Ben Ish Chai (1832-1909) This
Friday, the 13th of
Perhaps one
of the greatest leaders of Sefardic Jewry in the 19th early 20th
century the Ben Ish Chai, was a highly-revered Torah scholar and master of
Kabbalah. Based in Baghdad, Iraq, he was recognized by the Sephardic community
both locally and abroad as an eminent Halachic authority.
Born into a
long chain of rabbinic figures renowned for their spiritual influence on the
Baghdad Jewish community over the centuries. His father, Chacham Eliyahu Chaim,
the son of Chacham Moshe Chaim, was the head rabbi and leader of Baghdad's
Jewish community. At
the age of seven, Yosef Chaim fell into a deep pit in the courtyard of his home
while playing with his sister. He was eventually saved by a miracle, and in
gratitude to G‑d he decided to devote his life to the study of Torah. As a young
boy, he spent many hours absorbing Torah from the books in his father's
extensive library When Yosef Chaim was fourteen years old, a question arrived
for his father from Rabbi Chaim Palag'i, the chief rabbi of Turkey. His father
was very busy and unable to answer for several days, so the young Yosef Chaim
answered the question in his father's stead. The Turkish rabbi was so impressed
with the boy's response that he predicted he would be a great sage.
In a special
room secluded for study, Yosef Chaim continued to strive toward spiritual
perfection, studying all of the Torah day and night. At midnight he would rise
to recite the Tikkun Chatzot, lamenting the destruction of the Holy Temple, and
at sunrise he would recite the morning prayers. For six consecutive years, he
fasted by day and ate only at night, to weaken physical drives that could
interfere with his Divine service. He built a mikvah, a ritual bath, in his
home, so he could purify himself at any time.
At the age of
eighteen, he married Rachel, the daughter of Rabbi Yehudah Someich, a relative
to his teacher. Together, they had one daughter and a son. Yosef Chaim was
known for the attention he showered upon his children, teaching them Torah and
conversing with them, despite his demanding schedule. He often composed little
riddles and puzzles to entertain them, some which are recorded in his book
Imrei Binah.
When Yosef
Chaim was twenty-five years old, his father passed away, and he became the
unofficial leader of the Baghdad community. The title chacham – "wise
one," the traditional Sephardic title bestowed upon rabbis – was appended
to his name. Despite his young age, he was highly respected, and one of his
disciples, Rabbi Dovid Chai Hacohen, testified that if Rabbi Yosef Chaim had
lived during the time of the Temple, it would never have been destroyed. For unlike
then, when the Jews disregarded the admonitions of the prophets, the entire
Baghdad community lovingly obeyed every word uttered by Rabbi Yosef Chaim.
During his lifetime, per his influence, all the Jews of Baghdad observed
Shabbat and Torah law. Chacham Yosef Chaim refused a salary for his public
service. Instead, he supported his family by partnering in his brother's
business. He personally funded the publishing of his books, refusing
sponsorship or charity, and any income from these books would be distributed to
the poor. He was also known to donate his books for free to Torah scholars.
He personally
funded the publishing of his books, refusing sponsorship or charity, and any
income from these books would be distributed to the poor. He attempted to bridge
the gap between the Sephardi and Ashkenazi communities, who often followed
widely differing practices, by referencing his contemporaries abroad, and
reflecting on their approaches in his own writings. He felt strongly that Torah
scholars needed to show mutual recognition for one another, even when they
disagreed, lest their names be forgotten with the passage of time. Though his legal decisions carried weight primarily
amongst Sephardi populaces, his Ashkenazi counterparts recognized his genius,
held him in high esteem, and often quoted his rulings.
For fifty
years, from his appointment until his death, he lectured for one hour daily on
Torah law and aggadah (historical and anecdotal material) in the Tsallat
L'ziri, "the small synagogue." Four times a year, he lectured at the
Great Synagogue of Baghdad, built with dirt from the land of Israel.
Chacham Yosef
Chaim understood that cut-and-dry Torah law would not appeal to many, so the
bulk of his discourses were coupled with Kabbalah and Aggadah. He helped his
followers make associations between Biblical lore and the law, so their hearts
would be drawn to the wisdom of Torah, and they would remember it.
His seminal
work, the Ben Ish Chai, is based on the three-hour classes he presented each
Shabbat. He'd begin each lecture with a Kabbalistic interpretation, in simple
language, of the Torah portion of the week, and then present a selection of
related practical laws. His approach was based on preservation of local
traditions, even in Halachic rulings. He would not recommend a change in local
tradition unless there was compelling reason to do so. His rulings testify to
his innovative approach which gave credence to local tradition, and to
Ashkenazi and Sephardi rulings alike.
The Ben Ish
Chai became the standard reference book for Torah law among Sephardim. It
appealed to a wide audience, scholars and commoners alike, including women, who
were usually not provided a religious education. Due to its widespread
popularity, Chacham Yosef Chaim came to be called by the name of his book.
Chacham Yosef
Chaim deeply loved the Land of Israel. He supported the Jewish settlement by
printing all his books there, and throughout his life, gave money to the
messengers from Israel who came to collect for the poor. In 1869, he journeyed
to Israel where he visited the gravesites of numerous holy figures in Jerusalem
and Hebron, and met with eminent Kabbalists. Though offered a rabbinical post
there, he decided to return to Iraq. He brought back with him a large stone to
be placed at the entrance to the synagogue where he lectured.
Days before
his death, on the 8th of Elul, Chacham Yosef Chaim went on pilgrimage to the
grave of the prophet Ezekiel, and he became sick shortly after. On the 13th of
Elul, 1909, he died and was buried that same night. He was deeply mourned, his
funeral attended by over ten thousand people—Jews and non-Jews alike. Years
after his death, Jews still made it practice to visit his gravesite every
Friday.
Despite his
passing over 100 years ago, his legacy is very much alive in the hearts of
those who continue to live by his seminal work, the Ben Ish Chai. Many of his
disciples became great Jewish scholars who continued to disperse his teachings.The extensive work of Chacham Yosef Chaim encompasses
all aspects of Judaism: Torah law, Kabbalah, Q&A's, sermons, parables,
proverbs, and prayers, liturgics and poetry for Shabbat and holidays. His work
reflects simultaneously broad knowledge of the sciences, medicine, astronomy,
physics and economics. His approach to Torah, though stringent, is imbued with
love for its practice, and his followers, whose numbers continue to grow even
today, revere his commitment to Torah law and the inspiration he brought to it.
Many schools,
particularly in Israel, have been built in his name. Thousands continue to
glean from the wisdom of Chacham Yosef Chaim, studying his books, but more
importantly, living by them.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF
THE WEEK
answer below at end of Email
Q. A settlement with a Shi’ite population is:
A.
Gush Halav
B. Rehaniya
C. Daburiyya
D. Ghajar
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S COOL RASHI OF THE WEEK
There is a mitzva to
review the Torah portion each week which our sages state should be fulfilled
reading the portion twice and once with the Targum Onkeos Translation. There
are many feel that it should be done with Rashi as well if not even in place of
the Onkelos. One of the many reasons is so that one can appreciate the global
explanation of Rashi. For to fully appreciate his commentary one can see how he
explains things that might seem similar however Rashi’s differing explanations
can shed light on many practical things that should be derived from the text
that you might have missed.
In this week’s Torah
portion on the mitzva of the Ben Sorrer U’Moreh the child who is
considered a wayward rebellious child that has already been flogged by the
courts and has continued and stolen and engaged in gluttonous behavior. The law
is that he is brought by his parents to the courts and he is stoned to death.
Don’t get nervous here, our sages tell us that this is a law that never
happened or was carried out. It is there merely to “learn it and get reward’.
The Torah tells us that this law is in order
Devarim (21:21) that all of Israel should
hear of this and fear.
Those words are
familiar words in fact in last week’s Torah portion when the law of an elder
that refuses to abide the ruling of the court who is known as a zaken mamre
(17:13) who is also sentenced to death in order that ‘Israel will hear of
this and fear’. Yet interestingly Rashi explains these verses differently.
On the verse over
there Rashi explains that his verdict is delayed to be carried out until the
pilgrimage holiday. Seemingly that is the time when the maximuim amount of
people will be there to witness it. This is an exception to the usual law when
we execute right away so as not to prolong the persons waiting in dread.
Here Rashi however
explains the text differently. Here he says we derive the law that it should
publicized from the court house that ploni-(the Talmudic word for John
Doe) is being stoned for being a rebellious son.
Rabbi Eliyahu Mizrachi
one of the great commentaries who’s central work is a commentary on Rashi notes
this discrepancy. He obviously reviewed Rashi every week and remembered the
Rashi from last week.
He notes the reason
for this difference being that the law of the Ben Sorrer UMoreh is only
for three months. Meaning to be eligible for this particular law and status of
being the rebellious son one has to be between 13 and 13 and 3 months. That’s
right just the first three months after your Bar Mitzva. The Talmud derives
this from the fact that the Torah calls him a son- he has to be the age of
maturity which is 13-however he cannot yet be considered a father- or even have
the possibility of becoming one. Since at age 13 one hits maturity and halachic
puberty by which he can then father a child. And since it takes three months
for the mother to start showing, by which then he is first already considered a
father-despite its fetus status. Thus the only time this law applies is for
that short three month span. See I told you that it is not a common law. The
Mizrachi thus notes therefore Rashi could not learn that here by this law one
would delay to wait for the pilgrimage holiday for then it would or could be
longer then the three month time frame. Therefore Rashi had to learn that here
the people ‘hearing and fearing’ had to come from a different mechanism.; one
of the court publicizing the case. Boom. There you have it.
See an intricate
halachic discussion and a whole word just by knowing your Rashis.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S COOL
HISTORICAL EVENT THAT HAPPENED ON THIS DATE IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK-
Knesset vote on reparations
from Germany-18th Elul 5712 – September
8th 1952:- It was
probably one for the most heated fights to take place in the early fledgling
state. To take money or not to. After much discussion, the Knesset chose to accept reparation
payments from Germany for losses caused by the Nazis during World War II. As
early as 1943, Jewish groups had begun to formulate demands for a postwar
settlement that would include billions of dollars of indemnity for stolen or
destroyed Jewish property (real estate, art, gold), plus payments for slave
labor, and reparations for the loss of Jewish life. The 1945 Paris Conference
on Reparations chose to ignore the Jewish demands. However, in 1951, German
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who viewed Jewish reparations as part of the burden
of guilt that Germans needed to confront, offered payments to Holocaust
survivors. In Israel, Menachem Begin led the movement against accepting the reparations, arguing that they would somehow "absolve" Nazis of their heinous crimes. Begin delivered a harsh speech at a huge and violent demonstration in Jerusalem on January 7, 1952. Begin called on citizens to refrain from paying taxes and to engage in civil disobedience, even at the cost of being taken to a “concentration camp,” as he put it. Haaretz described the Knesset plaza, where the rally took place, as “a battlefield.” Begin maintained his harsh tone also from the Knesset podium, when he called prime minister David Ben-Gurion a “fascist” and “hooligan.”
The Israeli delegation members did not conceal their aversion to their German interlocutors. Some refused to shake hands with the members of the West German delegation during the negotiations. The creative solution was the brainchild of someone in Ben-Gurion’s security detail, who suggested using a big room and placing an enormous table in it, minimizing contact between the two sides.
But in the end the parties reached an understanding. On September 10, 1952, Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett and Chancellor Adenauer signed the reparations agreement in Luxembourg. Under this agreement, West Germany transferred to Israel goods worth 3.45 billion deutsche marks (approximately $845 million) and acknowledged its responsibility for the genocide of the Jewish people and damage to property and life. It also undertook to personally compensate citizens persecuted by the Nazis.
German reparations enabled the state of Israel to build an infrastructure of roads, railways, shipping and industry, at a time when it was suffering from a severe shortage of foreign currency and of basic goods such as sugar and fuel. In the meantime the population of the young state doubled every three years. Today, 61 years later, not many people would dispute the fact that the agreement was one of the most important events in the history of the state, one that enabled Israel to get up on its feet and start moving forward. To date it has transferred some $70 billion. At the most recent meeting last month in Jerusalem, Germany undertook payment of an additional $1 billion over the next three years.
Over the years, German companies like Volkswagen, Deutsche Bank and Daimler-Benz have admitted to using slave labor during the war, and set up a fund to compensate workers. In the 1990s, it was revealed that Swiss banks were complicit in the Nazi effort to hide and sell stolen loot, and had engaged in the large-scale theft of deposits made by Jews. After some hesitation, Swiss banks announced their intention to create a fund for Holocaust victims.
RABBI SCHWARTZ'S FUNNY HITCHHIKER JOKES OF THE WEEK
I think hitch-hikers are
really friendly. I've gone past three in the last hour and they all gave me the
thumbs up.
He's so lazy that he's the only guy I know who doesn't walk in his sleep. He hitchhikes.
He's so lazy that he's the only guy I know who doesn't walk in his sleep. He hitchhikes.
I stopped to pick up a one-legged hitchhiker And told
him to hop in …oyyy did I really put that in….Bad Rabbi
So two lazy yeshiva guys are trying to hitch a ride to their
apartment. Finally after about a half hour a guy stops and pulls over for them
about a half a block up and waves for them to come. Rather than going up the
block Yankel turns to his friend and says- “look at this guy, he stopped for
us right where we had wanted to get off.”
Last but not least…It was Sunday morning at the Israeli army
base and three chayalim were called to their officers office for coming back
late from their weekend. The first soldier when asked why he was late responded
that he had to get a hitch with a horse and buggy and it took a while.{back in
the days when it was legal} He was excused. The next soldier as well responded
the same. He got a hitch from his Kibbutz and it was only with a horse and
buggy. Finally the last soldier was called in. Seeing that the first two
excuses worked he was about to give his excuse when the officer said to him “Don’t
tell me you were also getting a hitch with a horse and buggy…
Very quick on his feet the chayal said not at all He
actually said that he got a ride with a very fast sports car.
“So why were you late” His
officer asked him.
“You’ll never believe this” he said “But the road was all clogged with
horses and buggies…”
**************
Answer is D – I guessed wrong on this one. I
probably should have gotten it right. It was a toss up that I should have
figured out. See I knew that it wasn’t Gush Chalav right on top of meron as I
knew that was a mostly arab Christian and Maronite town. I knew Rechaniya was a
Circassian place cause we visited there and I will never forget the funny
dresses and stuff they do there. Now I knew that Ghajar which is visible from
Tel Dan and I speak about it all the time as being a former Syrian city that we
didn’t conquer in 1967and was then split up with Lebanon. Whatever you have to
tour with me to get the whole story, or google it. They were Alawites like the
Syrians and thus I guessed the answer was Daburiya-named after Devora the
prophetess in the lower Galile by Tabor where she judged. Not because I thought
it was Shia rather because I thought I had eliminated it. See most of the arabs
in Israel are Sunni. So I should have realized something didn’t make sense. The
truth is what I missed and if I would have though t for a second I could have
figured it out. Alawites are Shias…So the answer is those arabs in Ghajar.
Daburiya like prett much the rest of Israel is Sunni. Oh well.. Who cares?
Right?
